


This army has so many hands -- are you one of us?

by thought



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Everyone is very tired, Fox has a degree in public policy; ask him how, Gen, Kix will fight everyone and he will win, Slice of Life, duty of care vs. realities of war, unaddressed mental health issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:08:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24959659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thought/pseuds/thought
Summary: The Jedi are not soldiers. The Jedi were not made for war. The Jedi were not made to die for The Republic....Probably.Four moments from the war.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano & CT-7567 | Rex, CC-1010 | Fox & Quinlan Vos, CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi (background)
Comments: 27
Kudos: 422





	This army has so many hands -- are you one of us?

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWBG1j_flrg)  
> No beta we die like clones etc. etc.

The first time Kenobi gets seriously injured during a battle the 212th and the 501st are working together (because apparently if you're a Jedi you can request to be assigned with your vod and actually be taken seriously) so Kix gets the dubious honour of trying to patch him up in their shitty little med tent made out of literal branches and droid scraps, because most of their equipment had been lost during their 'oh shit that's a fucking lake who the fuck configured the sensors last?' landing.

"Scale of one-to-ten, sir," Kix says briskly. "Where's your pain level?"

Kenobi's bleeding through the scorched sleeve of his robes and Kix is not looking forward to removing all of the melted fibres from inside what's left of his upper arm. Even so he keeps glancing back out where maybe if you squint really hard you could see a faint flicker of blaster fire as the army finished off the last of the droids. Well, ok, Kix is assuming they're finishing off the last of the droids, because he has to believe something about this karking mission isn't going to be a Force damned embarrassment.

"Two, perhaps," Kenobi says, absently, then half rises at a particularly loud crash of cannon fire. Kix pushes him back down. He's feeling generous, so he even pushes on the uninjured side.

"Yeah, sure," Kix says, irritably. "I'm very impressed with your Jedi superpowers, Sir, now do you want to try maybe giving me a real answer?"

Kenobi actually looks at him, frowning. "I'm not attempting to deceive you, Lieutenant."

"Pare, ke'pare," someone says impatiently from a few cots down, then Helix is coming up on the other side of Kenobi, fumbling with his datapad, blood spattering the front of his chest plate and scanner dangling around his neck on what Kix really wants to believe isn't a strip torn off of someone's blacks.

"Helix," Kenobi says, insultingly relieved. "Please tell your counterpart that I am perfectly all right--"

"I can literally see your bone--" Kix cuts in.

"Is this not what we have bandages for--"

"How the kriff have you managed to live to become a General, nobody is that stupid--"

Helix clears his throat. "General," he says, offering his datapad. "Can you give us a pain number based on the descriptions here?"

Kenobi blinks, but obediently takes the pad. Kix rolls his eyes behind his helmet.

"Six, I suppose," Kenobi says after a moment, "though that's no reason I should take any sort of priority."

"It just helps with our assessment, sir," Helix says. "It doesn't affect how we'll be triaging."

...so apparently they just flat out fucking lie to their Jedi now, that's sure news to Kix. Kenobi looks dubious, at least, but he also doesn't call Helix out.

"Ideally I'd give you an IV," Helix says, while Kix finishes cleaning the wound and starts the preliminary staples that will hold everything in place for the bacta. He still has nightmares about the examples of bacta treatments applied to wounds that hadn't been properly set beforehand. Conveniently, this war seems set on providing far more creative and emotionally impactful nightmare fuel to keep things interesting. "You've lost a lot of blood."

"That's no problem, I'm quite good at working through blood loss."

"Great," Kix says, flatly.

"I'll grab you a ration bar and a bottle of water nonetheless," Helix says, mildly. "Please try to use this arm as little as possible. I assume you're ambidextrous with your Jetii'kad?"

Kix twitches. Nobody beyond the Nulls and the Alphas and some of the first batches of command clones had learned Mando'a formally, and most vod'e kept the language amongst themselves-- a secret passed from sibling to sibling, a piece of culture that the Kaminans hadn't managed to drill out of them. To use it so freely around a General seems almost profane.

"Oh very much so," Kenobi says. "Remind me to tell you about the water speeder chase when I was thirteen."

"I've seen the medical reports," Helix says, dryly. Kix does some rapid nat-born vs. clone math and frowns down at Kenobi. It's not obscenely young, but still right on that cusp that makes Kix a little leery.

Helix slaps on the bacta soaked bandage and secures another layer of water-proofing over top. "This should prevent any further nerve damage, but I'm very serious about not using the arm, Sir."

"I'll do my best," Kenobi says, smiling warmly as he stands up and only swaying a little. Once he's gone, Kix stares at Helix.

"So about your General's mental health," he says, pointedly.

Helix smiles at him, helmet off as he drinks his own water. It's not a nice smile. "Well, Vod, my General was abandoned in a warzone by his bajurii when he was thirteen and is under constant scrutiny by the Jetii Council because of his lineage, among a wide variety of other factors. My Commander, in case you've forgotten, was "gifted" the name Kote by Fett himself and then expected to somehow simultaneously live up to that name while also being a model obedient mindless clone. I've got a pilot who was the only member of his batch not to be decommissioned. An engineer who can't see fire without forgetting where he is. A bunch of kriffing shinies who see their siblings die before they've even got names every day. Hell, even our Admiral is lucky if he sleeps one night out of five. And all that being said, we're still reminded constantly that the war doesn't stop because we dare to have a feeling. We were made to die for the Republic, Kix, all of us. The Jetii were just a bigger investment. So yes, I have considered my General's mental health. And I have come to the professional conclusion as a fully qualified medic, that nobody gives a fuck and any attempts to actually address any of the many concerns I have will be roundly ignored. The best thing we can do for all of them is believe them when they say they're fine."

Kix wonders where Helix falls on that list of glibly described traumas. It rubs him the wrong way, but he's also self-aware enough to know that he's a hell of a lot pushier than most of his siblings. And it's served him well. He'd gotten access to university libraries for self-directed study. He'd got one of his trainers kicked off of Kamino for his torture sessions disguised as training. He'd gotten Skywalker and the other natborns to ask each new vod they met for pronouns. Kix is determined and angry and doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut and he knows he's good enough to justify all of it. Kix will stand up for his brothers. He wonders, for the first time, who is standing up for the Jedi.

***

When Cody gets word that the 212th is being sent a Jetii to support the campaign on the nameless outer rim moon where they've been hunkered down for almost a month, Cody's first thought is that they'll be getting Skywalker. Obi-wan is still caught up with Council business on Coruscant, but Rex hasn't commed him to scream into his pillow in pure rage in almost a tenday, so Skywalker must be due some action. And everyone knows the 212th and the 501st work well together-- occasionally too well, Cody has found shinies hiding from Kix and junior officers writing reports for Yularen when the 501st is nowhere nearby. Failing Skywalker, one of the other High Generals would make sense. It is perhaps arrogant to say, but the 212th is High General Kenobi's battalion for a reason; if they can't handle a situation, another ship of generic infantry and a saber-happy Knight aren't usually going to do much to help. It's the reason they work most often with other specialized troops and High Generals. And yet, when he pokes his brothers to find out who he should be expecting, none of them are headed their way.

"How am I supposed to map out the rest of this campaign if I don't know what resources I've got on the board?" he grumbles to Boil over a cup of watery caf, as if he's still coming up with plans that extend beyond 'don't die'. He's been splitting each packet of caf into three cups worth of water, and it's doing nothing for his mood.

"I mean, I assume whatever General they're sending will have a plan," Boil says reassuringly.

\---

"Why would I have a plan?" General Garen Muln asks, cocking his head to the side like a confused bird while his Captain snickers openly behind him.

His robes are spotless, and he's got a blaster and a toolkit attached to his belt along with his lightsaber. His hair is glossy and fucking... perky. The men standing behind him have bright purple paint decorating their clearly specialized armour, and even as they stand at attention they somehow still give off the impression of lounging.

"The Council told us to come to the middle of fucking nowhere and help you guys out. We're space and air support, Sir, we're just here to provide the dashing last minute rescues and look great doing it. Winning the war is up to people like you and Obi-Wan."

Cody sends a text comm to Helix: 'is this what having a stroke feels like'

Helix replies alarmingly quickly. 'Believe me, Al'verde, when you have a stroke, you'll know. I'm fully prepared.'

"Right," says Cody. "Well. We do our best, General. May I see your roster?"

"Already sent," Muln says. "Do with us as you will, Commander." And then--

He winks.

He fucking winks.

Cody is mildly concussed, fairly certain there's dust permanently embedded in the back of his throat, under-caffeinated, and physically and mentally bruised to the point of numb resignation. He is not fucking prepared for a Jetii who winks at him and respects his place in the chain of command and looks like he's just stepped out of a war propaganda holofilm.

"Get settled in," Cody says. "We'll meet to discuss our next move at 13:00, assuming nobody tries to blow us up between then and now."

"And even then, you should probably still show up, Sir," a Lieutenant from Muln's squad calls out cheerfully. Cody switches his gaze to the younger man, who shrugs, unaffected. "People talk, Commander. We've all heard about you."

Muln waves a hand. "And we certainly don't take anything as baseless and petty as rumours into account when meeting someone for the first time, do we?" he says, pointedly. "Because we are here as soldiers but that does not grant us the right to assume ourselves above such things as courtesy and consideration. Also, I don't think he can assign me KP, but I'd rather not find out."

"I would," says the captain who had been laughing earlier.

"That's because you’re a demon given human form only to punish me for every single time I've slighted the Force," Muln says, casually.

"And proud to be here, Sir," the captain responds.

"Dismissed," says Cody. "Please."

\---

Cody thinks it's going to be uncomfortable, giving direct orders to a Jetii under his command instead of gently nudging them in the direction he wants as to avoid causing offence. He's wrong. There is something deeply, sincerely, and slightly vindictively satisfying about the moment when, seeing a Jetii about to attempt to punch a super battle droid with his bare hands while hanging upside-down from a fighter flying far too low, Cody can snap "Absolutely not!" into his comms and actually be listened to. It makes the way that same Jetii swoops in on a jetpack twenty minutes later to scoop Cody out of the blast radius of an exploding tank slightly less humiliating, though there's really nothing to be done for the way he presents Cody back to the rest of Ghost with the exact same expression Cody wears whenever he has to return Obi-Wan's lightsaber to him.

\---

Three days later, Muln's air support unit is not looking nearly as photogenic.

"Quirkily charming cannon fodder reporting for duty, Marshall Commander," the captain chirps, popping up out of fucking nowhere with the slightly off-kilter twitchiness that suggests too many stims. Cody should learn his name. Cody should learn all of their names. It feels like he's playing into the inherent power imbalances, only knowing the Jetii's name.

"Sector eight," he says, instead. "And please have your men at least try to stay in their karking planes. We aren't used to dealing with unidentified flying objects that aren't hostile."

"I'll see what I can do."

Ten minutes later, Muln trudges up, scrubbing dust out of his eyes. "I'm here, I'm awake, I'm ready for another thrilling day of disregarding my own mortality for a war that I sincerely do not understand the point of, where do you want me?"

"Sector ten," says Cody, because everything else he could say is too kind or too cruel and Muln doesn't look like he can handle either. "And cut back on the jetpacks."

"you love the jetpacks, don't lie."

"You ever heard of 'too much of a good thing'?"

"Funnily enough, I have. But we're apparently throwing the rest of the Jedi code out the window, so I don't see why I can't have some fun with jetpacks in what time I have left."

Cody wonders if he can recommend an entire unit for mandatory psychological assessments. He decides he's going to try, as he watches Muln turn away, shoulders slumped with something deeper than exhaustion. Chances are it'll be ignored --for all of their faults, Muln and his troops are spectacularly competent (and therefore useful) to a man-- but it's all he can think to do.

***

Fox is not loyal to the \Jetii. Yes, he'd sat through all of the propaganda training modules on Kamino and bought into the whole culture as much as anyone else. But working on Coruscant does something to you. He doesn't think anybody took it into account when they assigned clones to the guard, but most of Fox's interactions with Jetii involve explaining paperwork for the fifteenth time, or reminding them that being a Jetii does not in fact give you a free pass to jump the cue of people scheduled to meet with the Chancellor, or the unspoken shared grief of realizing the caf machines in the main atrium are down again. He knows his brothers idolize their Jetii. Unbeatable hero's wrapped in mystery, or, for those closely-knit units, weapons of mass destruction who need to be kept in a bubble wrapped glass case when not released on the battle field. Fox, on the other hand, knows that the Jetii are quite simply people. Are they all-powerful? Only if "all" doesn't include the latest datapad game with all the colourful blocks and circles. Are they civilians? Well, he's read about the situations some of their ade were thrown into even before the war and he has some fucking questions. So no, fox isn't loyal to the Jetii.

But Fox is loyal to the Republic. He spends his every waking hour buried in paperwork and soothing upset egos and scolding drunk-and-disorderlies and grumbling about the budgetary cutbacks, but all of that means that every day tens of thousands of people enter that dome to make sure each member planet gets something he and his brothers never did. A choice. A voice in decisions. Fox watches the lumbering beast of subcommittees and briefing notes and recommendations and data analysis and he sees democracy, in all of its flawed, frustrating glory. Fox is a being composed entirely of caffeine and spite, but if he were to have a heart, somewhere deep down, it would belong to the concept of the Republic.

All this to say, that when he sees the pile of dirty laundry leaning up against the inside of his office door, he feels only irritation.

"Just because I can't actually arrest you doesn't mean I can't make your life very unpleasant," Fox says. "Breaking and entering is still a crime, especially when it's within the Senate."

"Aww, come on, aren't you obliged to help the downtrodden?" asks Quinlan Vos.

"You have never been downtrodden in your life and I am not social services." He had, once, very discreetly called a social worker for the Jetii, but that had mostly been because he was clearly hallucinating, hadn't eaten in a tenday, and would have been a danger to himself and others if he'd had his Jetii'kad. But fox and Vos have an agreement. Besides the one where they don't throw each other out any windows. Vos leaves his vode and his colleagues alone, and Fox doesn't call the Jetiise every time Vos shows up after another stupid stunt. So far it's worked out well for both of them.

"Soooooo," Vos drawls. "You heard about the shit that the mid-rim suppliers have been cutting their spice with lately?"

"Oh no," says Fox, closing the door and engaging his privacy lock.

"Oh yes," Vos says, tipping his head back against the wall. "OH yes. I can filter it out, so I'm not in any danger, but..."

He trails off, and stares vacantly up at the ceiling. "But?" Fox asks, finally. He doesn't really want to know the answer.

"Buuuuuuuut I kind of used up most of my energy doing that. The spice itself..."

"Sure," says Fox. "Great. This may as well happen."

"Wow. I come to you in my time of need, vulnerable, fragile, trusting..."

Fox pours a cup of water from the cooler and holds it threateningly over Vos' head until he gets the idea and takes it.

"And dare I ask why you decided partaking in the subject of your investigations was a sound strategy?"

"The spice isn't the focus of my investigation, it's just a means to an end. Something's happening to the trade routes. Privatizing hyperlanes is all well and good until the owners stop being the people you like."

"Should you be telling me this?"

"No, but should I have been able to see the Chancellor's schedule for the next three tendays on your terminal when I came in?"

"Haar'chak," says Fox, feelingly.

"I closed it for you," Vos says cheerfully.

"Great," Fox snips. Vos finishes his water and lets the cup fall to the floor.

"I'm just gonna... hang out on your floor for a while," he says. "Feel free to get on with your day. Oh wait, it's the middle of the night. Do we need to have the work/life balance talk again?"

Said 'talk' had actually been fox falling asleep at his desk and waking up on the floor with a massive bump on the side of his head and a Jetii baar'ur padawan lecturing him on the dangers of sleep deprivation while Vos smirked in the background.

"You're in no position to be throwing stones," Fox says. Vos lets himself tip over, folding down into the recovery position and pulling his leather jacket over himself like a blanket.

"I know, I know."

Fox exhales, and leans up against the side of his desk. "At the risk of sounding like Kote or Kenobi, the war doesn't stop because I'm tired. I can't exactly request less work, you realize? And all of this... doesn't come naturally. I'm excellent at my job, obviously, but it's not what we were trained for."

Vos rolls his eyes when Fox mentions the 212th command team, which reassures him that that over dramatized idiocy has also become a meme amongst the Jetiise. Honestly, with the way they apparently go on about each other's lack of self-care, they may as well have a couple of very fragile very stupid adiike running things. As far as he knows, neither of them have gotten to the point of losing troops because of it, and until that happens everybody needs to shut the fuck up about it.

"Yeah," says Vos. "I guess bureaucracy and diplomacy weren't popular classes on Kamino. That seems like an oversight."

"Well, it's not as if the Jedi were trained for war, so my men and I aren't the only ones in this position."

"Not all of us, no," Vos says. "But personally, Fox? I'm having a fucking great time."

Fox thinks he's being sarcastic until he continues.

"Was I trained to lead troops? Obviously not. But I'm one of the lucky ones who had applicable skills already. Intelligence work is exactly what I trained for, and now I just get to play on an even bigger board. And I get to spend a lot more time on Coruscant, which means I've got way higher chances of getting to see my friends when they're on-planet. I am fucking thriving, my friend."

Fox stares down at him. He smells like death stick smoke and sour alcohol sweat, and there's something disgusting stuck in his hair.

"That's possibly the most alarming thing you've ever said to me," Fox says, honestly.

Vos laughs, a bit too long, a bit too high-pitched. "It is, isn't it? Believe me, the more opportunity I have to keep my mind occupied the better. And it's easier to be someone else. Safer."

"Somehow it doesn't surprise me that being yourself is dangerous," Fox says dryly, because he's really not equipped for an emotional conversation at 2:00 in the morning.

Vos lifts his head and stares intently just to the right of Fox's shoulder. "You misunderstand. Not safer for me. Safer for everyone else."

"I'm revoking your reasonable person licence," Fox says. "That was far too dramatic."

Vos burrows deeper beneath his coat. "Yeah, that's fair."

***

"This," says Echo, very calmly, "is a terrible idea. Sirs."

He can tell Fives is glaring at him. It's a very familiar feeling. Echo has no regrets-- somebody had to say it and apparently nobody else sees any issue with what's happening here.

"I think it's a great plan," says Idiot Jedi the younger.

"Thank you, Snips," says Idiot Jedi the Elder, looking smugly over at Echo.

"Learn to expand your horizons, vod," says Idiot Captain the Only. Echo can't believe the first time he'd met him he'd thought Captain Rex was some sort of heroic wise elder. It's karking embarrassing, is what it is.

"Have you considered," he says, switching his external mic off and flipping to a private channel to Fives, "that I don't want to die today? No? Ok, great, just as long as we're clear."

"Be nice," Fives says, "Medic Kix told me The General's had a lot of head injuries. And the kid probably doesn't know any better."

"What's Rex's excuse?"

"Maybe the bleach in his hair leaked through his skull."

"That's disgusting. And it's natural."

"Is it?" Fives leers.

"Mmm," says Echo, expressionlessly. "Idiocy and breaking regs, that's definitely what does it for me."

"Ok," says Skywalker. "Everybody ready?"

Rex blinks a few times, getting used to the green contact lenses, and tugs a bit on the ginger wig. Echo's pretty sure the equally ginger beard is glued on slightly crooked. Tano zips up the oversized jacket advertising a university Echo's never heard of, and swings a bag of datapads over her shoulder, her lightsabers tucked at the very bottom. Echo desperately hopes somebody thought to erase the datapads before they decided to use them in this little... adventure.

"ok," she says. "Chemistry. Chemistry. Looooove that chemistry. Fascinated by all those... chemicals."

Echo feels like he's back on Kamino, playing a prank on the trainers.

"Maybe let Rex do the talking," Skywalker says.

"I'll be a very convincing professor, sir," says Rex, very earnestly. "I'll just channel General Kenobi."

Skywalker laughs so hard he starts coughing. It's not a fucking auspicious start.

\---

Listening over Comms, Echo is amazed when the lab manager in this highly secretive corporate hellhole cheerfully agrees to give the visiting professor and his grad student a tour. Skywalker grins in victory.

"Step one, accomplished!" he whispers, giving Fives and Echo a double thumbs up.

Rex and Tano are doing a terrible job of pretending to know literally anything. Echo has only the vaguest understanding of the GAR's espionage de vision, but he is 100% sure that if three of their people had vanished while trying to get this information, a random soldier and Jedi verd'ika are not going to magically have better luck, even if Skywalker is apparently the Chancellor's favourite. And that favouritism is, as far as Echo can tell, the only reason Skywalker is on this mission with them at all. His face is too recognizable for him to be of any use under cover, and quite frankly he'd be more use to them in the shuttle, ready to provide a quick getaway through the frankly terrifying orbital defence system. But instead, he's loitering in the alleyway across from the lab with them, radiating obnoxious pride in his incredibly stupid plan.

Echo is pretty damn sure that it would have been easier for somebody to sneak in during the night and plant the data link that will allow someone to slice into their systems remotely. And by someone, he means himself, because his faith in any of his team members' abilities with a computer is pretty much non-existent.

They make it twenty minutes. Echo is grudgingly impressed. He's even more impressed when Rex and Tano make it out of the building without the three of them needing to come in guns blazing. He really hates engagements in urban areas. No matter how careful everybody is, there will always be civilian casualties, and inevitably one side isn't interested in being careful.

"I figured they'd shut down their network right away once we were discovered," says Tano, "so we brought the computer to you."

"And the safe," Rex says, equally cheerful. "Not sure how it opens, but I imagine a laser cutter will do the trick."

"Why... is the computer covered in blood?" Skywalker asks, making a face. Tano heaves the boxy old machine higher on her hip and shrugs, looking a little embarrassed.

"One of the guards was... really invested in keeping it away from us."

Skywalker opens his mouth, then closes it. There's a long, awkward moment of silence. Echo wonders why nobody's come after them.

"If the rumours about this weapon are real, it'd kill a lot of people when it gets deployed," Tano says, a little defensive, a little scared.

"Yeah," says Skywalker. "Yeah, you're right, Ahsoka."

"Sorry, sir," Rex says, bowing his head. "I should have been faster."

"No!" Skywalker clenches his fists, turns away briefly then spins back to stare at both of them. "No, it shouldn't be-- None of us are coming out of this war with clean hands. You and your brothers aren't obliged to do the dirty work just because of who you are. A life taken is a life taken, no matter who does it, and I-- we don't expect anything of any of you that we wouldn't do ourselves."

He puts a careful hand on Tano's shoulder, but she hunches a bit, like she's trying to get away without offending him.

"I just wish..." He trails off, then straightens up, clears his throat. "Well. Good job, both of you. Let's get out of here."

When they get back to the ship, Rex drags Fives away to help him unstick the fake beard, and Skywalker locks himself in the cockpit. Echo hopes he's smart enough not to punch any of the important control panels.

Tano sits on the floor, all straight-backed and folded hands like she's about to meditate, but her eyes stay open.

When she speaks, Echo's not sure if she's talking to him or to herself, but he turns toward her in case he's expected to respond.

“I thought he knew," she says, uncertainly. "I mean, we've all killed people before, right? I just assumed it was something you... dealt with. Got used to. I know my master has killed. And even if I hadn't, is it really better when it's droids? They're still sentient."

Echo could argue that, but he doesn't think now is the time. "They were created to fight," he offers, instead. It takes hours before he realizes the implications of his words.

**Author's Note:**

> Most clones: My Jedi is amazing, so wise, so kind, so strong...  
> Fox: Anyway i found this in the dumpster and i guess it lives here now  
> Most Jedi: The clones are so unique, so wonderful, so undeserving of the government-approved mass slavery they were born into  
> Quinlan: HEY ASSHOLE
> 
> I'm on [tumblr](http://thought-42.tumblr.com)


End file.
